Category Archives: Your Podcast

The Blubrry team wanted to get one last feature out to you before the end of the year, and it’s an update to our podcast statistics. Free and Pro stats users now have details for Mexico and Germany, hourly reporting and more. M*A*S*H fans rejoice – Alan Alda is having a reunion on his podcast. Swedish podcast business, Acast recently acquired additional funding, a tactic becoming more and more popular for hosting companies in this industry. WordPress users, are you enjoying the the Gutenberg update? Obviously we’re on the WordPress wagon, so we’re curious to know your thoughts.

Acast raised another round of Series C money, $35 million to be exact.

Topic:

Daniel J. Lewis, devoted podcaster, among other things in this industry, took it upon himself to look into RSS feeds from multiple podcast hosting companies. His results are rather interesting, and focus on podcasting growth as a whole. You can also check out the Podcasters News article.

Blubrry Directory: Many Blubrry hosting and PowerPress users forget this step. You just set the Hosting Settings to WordPress and put your RSS feed in the Listing settings at Blubrry.

It puts your podcast in the directory at Blubrry.com (not automatic if you are using PowerPress.

It allows the Blubrry player to have YOUR podcast image in it.

It helps the support team to understand your RSS feed – where it’s based – if you have a question for us, inevitably saving us loads of back and forth emails.

Keep in mind of holiday delays. The week of Christmas all the way to New Years Day will likely be a bit slower for support requests as the team spends some time with family and friends. We thank you for your patience!

Newly launches, the Podcast Business Journal is the latest podcast newsletter and website to emerge, featuring a familiar name, Todd Cochrane. Why do you podcast? Not everyone is in the podcasting game for the same reason and we discuss some of those scenarios. We tell you why you might not want to take a holiday break, we give some reasons on why you should stick around when everyone else is taking off. Last but not least, help us help you, on this week’s post-Thanksgiving episode of Your Podcast.

News:

Topics:

Why do you podcast? Is it a hobby, to market your own products, because it’s part of your job? Let us know the WHY behind your podcasting.

Taking a break for the holidays? We know it’s tempting. Why this may not be a great idea, and we have reasons to back it up.

Support:

Podcasting terms 101: Feed, “show”, episode, post, media file, listing, upload, download, PUSH, PULL and many more. We could do a whole episode about terms that get mangled when someone talks about podcasting. Shawn, John, Dave and I will post a question that has mixed terms in it and all try to figure out what the person really meant. It’s really interesting what we get sometimes.

READ the response you get from support all the way through. In most cases, we have covered your next question. Answer any questions support has, if you can. If you don’t know the answer, let us know that you at least read the question so we can clarify.

DON’T PANIC, it’s important but it’s just a podcast. Yes, it’s critical but the worst thing you can do is get in a hurry. 99% of issues can be fixed even if not right away.

We love to talk to you, BUT….. please, do not put in a ticket, an email, a post on social AND call. Pick one (other than social media) and give us time to get to your question. This can cut down the time as we don’t have to sort through contacts that we have already taken care of.

Social media. It’s great for general questions and comments to the community but direct support is best done DIRECTLY. We can not discuss account specific questions on social. (Plus, we in support don’t have time to surf for questions on Facebook and the like 99% of the time).

We’re getting closer and closer to holiday season and some might be surprised to hear it effects podcasting. Apple recently released it’s holiday schedule, so those of you looking to start a new show, make a change, etc. please take note of the days they’ll be off and when things will be slower in general. Remember, poor planning on your part does not constitute an emergency on theirs. Everyone deserves a break for the holidays. On the other side of things, Google Podcasts has added a share button to their app. Blubrry is moving some RSS feeds – if you’re effected you received an email about it, so no worries for anyone. We’ve also been working hard on our IAB statistics certification, among other things happening here at Blubrry.

A belated Happy Veterans day! Thanks to all that have served!

News:

Google Podcasts has added a Share button on their app: Helping with growing audiences.

Google Podcasts Link Generator: Create a link specifically for your show on Google Podcasts that you can share with listeners, social media, website, etc.

Apple Podcasts Holiday Schedule, see the details below.

Holiday Submission Schedule

If you plan to release new shows on Apple Podcasts in November or December, be aware of the following periods of delayed submission activity:
– November 16, 2018, to November 26, 2018
– December 21, 2018, to January 2, 2019
Shows submitted during these windows may not be available within our regular time frame of five business days. Plan accordingly and submit any new shows with this in mind.

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RSS feed move for Blubrry.COM based feeds (not PowerPress feeds). If you’re using WordPress you don’t need to worry about this at all. For those effected, you don’t have to do anything.

Support:

Spotify: Important stuff for you to be able to have your show in Spotify.

Feed title

Apple Category

Author

Please give us as much info as you can when you contact support. It saves a lot of back and forth.

We have noticed the level of rudeness when asking for help is on the increase. Just remember, we didn’t do anything to your podcast. This stuff can be confusing and we are happy to help, but being rude is, well just rude, and as much as we try, we are human. If someone is rude to us in support, it’s really hard not to be rude back. Bottom Line: There are humans behind all this online stuff. Cut us some slack!

In the nonstop blur of podcasting advice, Blubrry longtime podcasters have recommend the top 5 directories to submit your podcast to. Each directory serves it’s own purpose and some are more valuable than others. The changes never stop in podcasting and Todd and Mike discuss a new conference, a B2B purchase, and the consistent concerns with Apple’s directory.

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The Sound Education conference is almost here! This first time event will be held, Thursday, Friday and Saturday at Harvard University. MacKenzie will be in attendance and on a panel about monetization.

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Top 5 places to make sure your podcast is listed (in order of importance)1. Apple Podcasts – Yes, still #1.2. Google Podcasts – Because, come on, it’s Google.3. TuneIn Radio – Gets you on Alexa, Google Home, Cortana and whatever that Facebook thing is.4. Stitcher – A significant number of people continue to use this platform.5. Spotify – Yes, we still think it deserves to be last.
Other places are: Blubrry directory and iHeartRadio (if you can get in). Apply here.

Most iOS and Android Podcast apps use Apple’s API so if you are in Apple, you’ll be in most apps.

Support:

Changing the title of your show in PowerPress: With Apple’s silliness going on concerning Titles and Author tags, we get a lot of people wanting to change their titles. The setting is called “Feed Title” and it’s in the Feeds tab of PowerPress settings.

Yes, it’s true! More than one podcast needs more than one hosting account at Blubrry.

Advice to podcast owners: IF you have a team taking care of your podcast for you, make sure you retain the logins and passwords to EVERYTHING. Apple Podcasts Connect, Feedburner (if you use it), your media host, WordPress site, your web-host. Everything. Even if you never log in, have that info and make sure it works every once in a while. It can save you a TON of trouble later.

The latest version of PowerPress was released early October, which included the introduction of emoji and skip-to-position. Google is dipping further into podcasting by teaming up with PRX for a Podcasts Creator program. The episode wraps up with the winners of the 2018 People’s Choice Podcast award winners.

Todd will be in the Columbus, OH area visiting the office; if you’d like to meet with him on Tuesday or Wednesday (16-17) let him know, the Blubrry team loves visitors. You can email him at todd@blubrry.com.

Blubrry Podcasting recently hit another milestone, 600,000 shows in their podcast directory, and always growing! For those interested in the Apple industry, which is all podcasters in some sense, they have some new toys coming out this week and the rest of fall. We’ve got RSS feeds on the mind so we’ve explained different ways to create your RSS feed (and what is an RSS feed) at Blubrry. Todd is back from travel and they’re talking about all things Blubrry and podcasting on this episode of Your Podcast.

Who owns your podcast? Make sure it’s worked out with any co-host, employees/employers ahead of time. When things split up for whatever reason, it’s best to have a plan.

Support:

Welcome our new technical support rep: Helping out nights and weekends, John Haskins.

Player images on the Blubrry player: Turn on the option in the “activate and configure now” area. Then upload the episode image to the spot provided in the Podcast Episode box (only works on PowerPress)

Directory times: Apple doesn’t show your new episode in the directory listing right away. Normally 24 hours or less, but sometimes longer. Subscribe to your own show to make sure it’s working properly.

Show notes: DO NOT USE A WORD PROCESSOR and copy/paste your shownotes. It causes a LOT of trouble. Hidden symbols and such.

RSS feeds aren’t exactly user friendly to all, so we wanted to simplify them a bit so that everyone can understand. We explain not only what a podcast feed is but the importance of having one.

What is a podcast RSS feed anyway?

RSS stands for “Rich Site Syndication” or “Really Simple Syndication”. In short, according to Wikipedia, RSS “is a type of web feed which allows users to access updates to online content in a standardized, computer-readable format.” In human language, that means you and your audience can use an RSS feed to consume your content someplace other than your website. Remember blog aggregators/readers? That’s how they work(ed). And, if you have a podcast, the podcast RSS feed is how platforms like Apple Podcasts, Google Podcast, Spotify, and others get your podcast info: they are more like an old-school phonebook, in that they simply list your information, but your podcast is actually served from wherever you host your media files. Your podcast RSS feed tells them things like your show name, the podcast episode title, the duration, etc. By the way, if you’re looking for an incredibly flexible, fast, stable place to host your podcast media files, be sure to check out our Podcast Hosting plans. Or, if you’re wondering how to get your podcast on Apple Podcasts, check out our step by step guide.

Why you need a podcast RSS feed

Put yourself in your listener’s shoes… or eyes & ears… for a minute. When you post anything to your website, your RSS feed defaults to listing a certain number of your most recent items. For example, WordPress defaults to listing the 10 most recent posts. The thing is, podcast readers will ignore anything in the default RSS feed that isn’t a podcast. So, if you’re publishing a handful of blog posts per month as well as a podcast per week, your default feed will only serve up those four podcasts. Your listeners are missing out.

BUT! If you have a podcast-only RSS feed as Blubrry users do, your listeners will have access to more of your awesomeness because the feed won’t be filled up with blog post content. Just the podcasts. You should have a podcast-only RSS feed.

Three ways to create a podcast RSS feed

Something to seriously consider as you set out on your epic podcasting journey: do you want to own and control your podcast RSS feed? The answer, if you truly care about your own story, is most likely yes. In which case, read on.

The PowerPress WordPress plugin. It’s free. It’s super simple. It’s one of the most trusted ways to share your story with the world. The PowerPress WordPress plugin makes creating your podcast RSS feed ridiculously easy. That’s why there are tens of thousands of active installs, all over the world. We began developing the PowerPress WordPress plugin way back in 2008 because we wanted an easier way to create a podcast RSS feeds for our own podcasts. There is even a step-by-step guide on how to create your podcast RSS feed over at Blubrry.com.

If you don’t have a WordPress site we provide one to every customer for free and it has PowerPress included. There certainly are a plethora of other options, but none are as simple to use or widely adopted and it’s integrated into the free WordPress site for those that do not have one.

There is no three.

Ok. Those are the basics of what a podcast RSS feed is, why you might want one, and how to set up your very own podcast RSS feed. Be sure to check back often for more podcast RSS tips and tricks. And, as always, if you’re a Blubrry customer and you have any questions at all, give us a call. We have real, live humans ready, willing and able to help you build your podcast– including technical support in setting up a podcast RSS feed.

We should also mention that sometimes our corporate customers or podcasters experimenting in the space do not want to go the WordPress route. That’s really ok as we have a solution for you where you can publish directly on Blubrry.com as well and we will provide you an RSS feed from there. We always want to suggest the best solutions first, as we truly believe you should build your brand on your .com this results in the best SEO for your show.

The Federal Communications Commissions, better known as the FCC, has officially joined podcaster ranks with their own show, entitled More than Seven Dirty Words. A play on their role in communications, it focuses on the organization as a whole. Shawn Thorpe joined Mike on the episode today as Todd was out on travel. They discuss a new podcast event happening in Atlanta and podcast listener demographics.

No surprise here, Millennials and Gen Xer’s top the charts in podcasting listening. Check out the data from NextRadio.

Topic:

Just who is Shawn Thorpe and how long has he been involved with Blubrry?

Support:

Moving your podcast: When you are running your podcast from a website, do not change the domain until you have redirected to the new website/domain. Rebranding needs to be done in a particular order to work correctly and to not lose subscribers/listeners. Follow the steps below.

Set up your new domain/website.

Import podcast to your new site.

Check PowerPress settings.

Copy/Paste all settings from Destinations (that you’re able to).

Redirect old RSS feed to new RSS (no not do a whole site redirect yet).

Put your new RSS feed address in the “iTunes New Feed URL” tag or setting on both the new and the old RSS feeds.

Wait 30 days, perform site redirect then.
***Post new content only on the new site.

Spotify: If your Spotify link doesn’t work, please check with us first (if you are hosting with us) and we will check it. If we find nothing wrong, you will have to contact @spotifycares on Twitter (it’s their only support for podcasters). Check with us first, before heading over to social media.

For those using Generator: (Blubrry.com RSS feeds) Do not put ANYTHING in the Alternative Feed URL box. That will cause a loop that will duplicate every episode over and over and over in the feed (which is really annoying to clean out).

Import Podcast from within PowerPress: This is NOT a workflow. It’s meant to be a one-time only use to move a feed to WordPress from any other feed.

There is always something happening in the podcasting world and the tail end of summer 2018 has been no different. Apple has been cracking down on stuffing multiple keywords into RSS tags, listen in to learn how to deal with the issue a bit, and that they have fixed the Podcasts Connect issue. Even though Alex Jones is not listed in most podcast directories or apps, his show is still online due to the power of RSS. Lots of traveling for the team; Mike is back from vacation and Todd is heading out on a road trip.